A Gift From: mitchpell
Type Of Gift: Fic
Title: Resounding Ruin
A Gift For: alphaflyer
Rating: R
Warnings:Canon Typical Violence
Summary/Prompt Used: Anything else you feel like writing!
Author's Note: This didn't turn out at all how I wanted. Sorry I didn't write to you more specific prompts. Hope you still enjoy!


Resounding Ruin

Chapter 1

Clint stopped just outside the house and looked down at the tear in his mud stained jeans. He was in trouble. No doubt about it, he was in trouble. He’d been told not to play in his new school clothes. And he hadn’t. At least not intentionally. It had just been recess. They’d been playing tag and he’d tripped while running across the playground. But he knew that wouldn’t matter to Dad. All Dad would see is the ruined jeans and he’d be in trouble.

“You are so dead,” Barney snickered as he pushed past and climbed the porch steps.

“Shut up, Barn!” Clint yelled back.

“Nice comeback, loser. Better hope Dad’s not drunk!”

Clint watched, half furious, half terrified as his brother disappeared into the house. He briefly considered running, but that would just get him in more trouble. Besides, he wasn’t going to run. He wasn’t going to be a coward. So he stole himself against the inevitable and climbed the steps and entered the house.

Clint entered just as his Dad was coming out of the kitchen, beer in hand.

“What the fuck is that?” His fathered slurred while he pointed his beer can down at the mud-torn rip in Clint’s jeans. “Didn’t I tell you not to ruin those?”

“Yes, sir,” Clint muttered after dropping his head to avoid looking at his father.

“ What was that? I can’t hear you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“‘Yes, sir.’ That’s what I thought. But just like your bitch of a mother you don’t think you have to listen.”

At the mention of his mother, Clint peered past his father to see her on the cowering on the kitchen floor. Even from where he stood, he could see the tears streaming down red swollen face. Barney was crouched down beside her. The two of them locked eyes and for the first time he saw fear in his older brother.

“Get over here!” His father yelled.

Clint kept his eyes on his brother.

“I said get over here!”

Barney shook his head.

Clint bolted. Out the door, down the porch, and across the yard. He didn’t know where he was going to go. He just ran. He heard the screen door slam again and glanced back to find his father chasing after him.

Panicked, Clint pushed himself faster. He didn’t look back, he just kept running. Out of the yard and into the prairie. The tall grass dragged across this arms and legs and grabbed at his feet. He stumbled, but somehow managed to keep his feet. He kept going until he was slammed into from behind and knocked to the ground.

His father’s weight landed on top of him, knocking the wind out of him and pinning him face first into the ground.

“You don’t think you have to listen to me!”

Clint struggled to breathe against his father’s crushing weight and the dirt pressed into his face.

“You don’t want to listen to me! I’ll make it so you can’t listen to me.”

His father grabbed his hair and turned his head to the side; one large hand pressed hard against his temple. Out of the corner of his eye Clint could see his father pull something from his breast pocket; sunlight glistened off of it.

Pain exploded in his ear as his dad forced the object inside. Once, twice, again, and again. Clint screamed, but the sound was muffled.

His father grabbed his hair again, turned his head, and shoved his weapon into his other ear, until Clint’s muffled screams and sobs fell silent.

*~*

Clint woke in the hospital to a painfully silent world, surrounded by the grief stricken faces of his family. The doctor told him, with the help of a notepad, that he’d been deafened by the accident.

Accident. That’s what his father had called it. And his mother, to afraid to go against her husband, had backed up the story.

Justice would be his in the end, though. Time gave him back some of his hearing. Enough to classify his loss as severe in his left ear, but only moderate in his right.

And his father...well his father took out both himself and his cowardly mother in an alcohol induced car accident.


Chapter 2

Clint silently followed Rodriguez through what remained of the door of the dilapidated building. The two moved quietly through the lower level, sweeping back and forth as they went, clearing the floor before returning to the staircase. They continued upward in a similar fashion, checking and clearing each level until they had cleared the entire building. They remained on the fourth floor choosing a room that looked out over the northeast corner of the city.

“Let’s get that table from the other room.”

Clint nodded before following his spotter back out into what was probably once a dining room. The table in question was fairly large, but the two were able to maneuver it with relative ease. They placed it about three feet back from the window in their chosen room.

“I’m going to grab one of those chairs.”

Clint nodded again as he sat his rifle on the table. He then unslung his pack and dumped it next to his rifle. He pulled all of his prepared rounds out of his pack, loaded his rifle, and then climbed onto the table. Lying prone, he rested his rifle on top of his pack, shouldered the weapon, and peered through the scope into the darkened city.

“This gonna do?” Rodriguez asked as he came back into the room and positioned his chair next to the table.

“Should be good,” Clint confirmed.

“All right then. If you’re good, then I’m good.”

Clint nodded. “Lets radio in then.”

Rodriguez pulled the radio out of his pack. “Nest, this is Hawk. We are in position, over.”

“Copy that, Hawk. We’ll see you at dawn. Nest out.”

“Ok, let’s settle in.”

Clint nodded and then the two got down to the business of preparing the site, which predominantly consisted of ranging key points within their field of view. They, along with three other sniper teams, were on overwatch. Tasked with protecting ground troops as they cleared each building within a five block radius.

Clint and Rodriguez watched the night pass into dawn through the scopes of their respective equipment. The night was relatively uneventful, lacking in activity on either side. With dawn, however, came their ground troops and with them an influx of jihadist activity.

Clint and Rodriguez worked seamlessly, eliminating targets as they presented themselves, until the all clear came over the radio.

“Alright, Hawkeye, let’s get our asses to the rendezvous.” Rodriguez chirped before he started to tear down his set up.

Clint groaned as he got up from the table, his muscles protesting the motion after the prolonged stagnation.

“Christ, man, you sound like an old man.”

“This,” Clint teased, “coming from the guy who can’t sit still for more than five minutes. How the hell you ever made it through cover and concealment is beyond me.”

“It’s all in the charm, baby.”

“In your momma’s dreams.”

“Hey, now! Don’t you be…”

Rodriguez sentence was lost, drowned out by the shrill scream of an RPG and the subsequent explosion that erupted as it hit the far wall of their bombed out apartment.

*~*

Clint woke three days later in a field hospital outside of Baghdad. Dizzy and disoriented from a concussion and unable to hear anything but the incessant whine of tinnitus.

They told him that the blast had taken Rodriguez, that his friend and spotter had been D.O.A. Clint on the other hand would walk away, with nothing more than extensive hearing loss and survivor's guilt.


Chapter 3

Natasha glanced up from where she sat on the bed of the safehouse as her partner staggered into the room. He was completely lacking in his usual grace. In fact he looked haggard and rundown; more so than their current mission justified. It put Natasha on edge; she knew something was wrong.

“Clint?”

“I’m fine,” he muttered as he dumped his gear unceremoniously on the floor and then disappeared into the bathroom.

She was willing to give him a minute, to take an opportunity to compose himself. But when she heard the sounds of retching, she took it upon herself to intrude. She didn’t warn him; she simply walked in and planted herself in the doorway. “Clint?”

“I don’t know,” he muttered into the toilet bowl, “it started coming on about an hour after Oppenheimer showed up.”

Natasha frowned. That had only been three hours ago; a short amount of time for him to have declined so significantly.

“I’m fine,” he muttered again, before pushing his head out of the bowl and flushing.

Natasha watched as Clint struggled to his feet and staggered over to the sink. But instead of turning on the water, perhaps to rinse his mouth out or splash water on his face, he simply stared at the sink, hand hovering halfway towards the facet.

“Clint?” Natasha asked again, this time letting her concern creep into her voice. “And don’t tell me you’re fine.”

“I’m fine,” he muttered like a broken record, “I just need to sleep.”

As he went to push past her, she grabbed ahold of his arm. The heat that emanated from his body was staggering. “Jesus, you’re burning up.”

“I’m fine. I just need to sleep.”

She held him fast, which was surprisingly easy considering, and pressed a hand to his forehead. “You need to get this fever down.”

“Get off me,” he practically shouted as he made to forcefully shove her to the side.

Natasha stepped back willingly, rather than provoke him further, and let him pass back into the main room. He walked over to the bed, stared at it in confusion for moment, and then layed down on the floor. He was still wearing his tack gear and his boots.

Once he was down. Natasha sprang into action. She went back into the restroom and retrieved the extensive first aid kit from under the sink. She then dampened a washcloth with cold water and brought it and the first aid kit back into the main room. She grabbed the phone off the nightstand and then returned to her partner’s side. He was lying face down, so she shook his shoulder to try and rouse him. “Clint?”

When he didn’t stir, she forcefully rolled him onto his back. She pulled a thermometer out of the kit and ran it across his forehead. The digital display read 105.2. When she placed the cold cloth across his forehead, Clint jerked and moaned at the offensive object but otherwise didn’t stir. Leaving the cloth pressed to her partner’s forehead, she retrieved a vial of ibuprofen from the kit. She read the bottle to determine the correct dosage, filled a syringe, and injected it into Clint’s arm. Lastly, she cracked open two cold compresses and placed them on either side of Clint’s neck, picked up the phone, and called Coulson.

He answered on the third ring.

“Pickles taste good with peanut butter.”

“Only if they’re sweet,” Natasha replied, confirming the passcode.

“Report, Widow.”

“Hawkeye’s down, non-mission related, illness.”

“Symptoms?”

“Fever of 105.2, vomiting, fatigue, confusion, and now I can’t wake him.” Clint could sleep through a tornado, except when he couldn’t. “I’ve given him I.V. ibuprofen and used cold compresses to reduce the fever.”

“Request?”

“Mission abort and emergency evacuation. Something's not right, Phil.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Hold tight and await my call.”

Natasha remained by Clint’s side as she waited to hear from Coulson. In the meantime, she checked his temperature again, but it had dropped only 0.3 degrees. The phone rang another three minutes later, because Coulson was nothing else if not efficient.

“I’m sending you a set of coordinates outside the city. A quinjet will meet you there in two hours.”

“Confirmed.”

Natasha terminated the call and placed the phone back in the cradle. She made quick work of packing both her and Clint’s gear. The original mission was meant to require substantial travel, so they had been provided a vehicle. She took the gear down first and then considered the monumental task of getting Clint to car.

Clint wasn’t an overly big man, but his weight was still considerable. And she would be hard pressed to avoid attracting attention by dragging him out in a fireman’s carry.

“Clint!” She called loudly as she forcefully shook his shoulders. “Time to move.”

To her relief, he did stir, but when they locked eyes she was met with pure confusion. “Clint, we need to move, so you need to get up.” His eyes darted around the room, and then suddenly he lunged at her. The attack was slow and weak due to the fever wrecking havok on his body and his prone position on the floor. But he’d caught her completely off guard, and consequently managed to knock her onto her back.

Natasha made it to her feet much quicker than him and held her hands up in a passive manner. “Clint, its me. Nat.”

He looked around the room and then at her before shaking his head as if to clear his mind. He then repeated the process. Natasha waited, all the while maintaining a non-combative posture. When he came at her again, she was ready to fend him off, blocking his weak attacks, remaining on the defensive.

“Clint! Hawkeye! Stop!”

The use of his code name made him hesitate, but only for a moment. Growing desperate, Natasha was forced to take the offensive and she bit him. Clint staggered back and then collapsed as the electricity surged through him, causing him to convulse and then pass out.

“Sorry,” Natasha told him as she pushed her hair back out of her face, “but you didn’t really give me much of a choice.”

She kneel beside him once again, she began the difficult process of getting his 160 lb. body into a fireman’s carry. She staggered under the weight, but somehow managed to haul him down to the car and maneuver him into the backseat. She returned to the house once more to sweep it and secure before climbing into the driver’s seat and loading the coordinates into the GPS.

She drove quickly, just above the speed limit, but not much so. They needed time, but they also couldn’t afford to draw the attention of civilians or cops. Once out of the city, she opened up and flew over the dirt roads.

The quinjet was waiting when she got there. Coulson had sent May, Ward, and Dr. Woo.

“Fury isn’t allowing for a mission abort.” May informed her once they’d gotten Clint onboard and into Woo’s capable hands. “Coulson sent Ward to be Barton’s replacement.”

Natasha nodded. She wasn’t pleased. There were few Agents she could tolerate working with, mostly because there were few who could keep up. She’d never worked with Ward personally, but Clint had and he hadn’t been thrilled about it.

“He’s an overly cocky shit,” he’d said, “I don’t trust him.”

Fury was right, though, they may not get another chance at this and she needed a sniper. Ward would have to do.

They made quick work of swapping gear, Clint’s for Ward’s, and before long they were headed back into the city. It would be another three weeks before the mission would be complete. Clint was still recovering from the bacterial meningitis that almost claimed his life. Woo expected almost a full recovery. A week after he’d regained consciousness, Clint had complained that things sounded muffled. Another three days later, he couldn’t hear anything. The inflammation caused by the bacteria had damaged the auditory nerve. Now that the inflammation was down, some of his hearing had returned, but it was unclear how much he would regain.


Chapter 4

Clint startled awake. He hadn’t meant to doze off, but fuck was he tired and hurt. His whole body, was just one giant pain.

“Relax,” Natasha called faintly from the opposite corner.

Clint looked over in her direction. She looked as bad as he felt. Her left cheek was gashed open and swollen and he lip was split. There was dried blood on her chin.

“How long was I out?”

“Not long,” she confirmed, “maybe twenty minutes.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s ok. At least one of us should get some rest.”

Clint nodded before shifting his position on the floor, every muscle in his body protesting the move. “Any new ideas about what we’re up against here?”

“I have a few theories, but nothing to back them up.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Visual or auditory suggestion or an inhaled neurological control agent. We haven’t been injected with anything. I haven’t noticed any gas being pumped into the room, but it could be subtle. Something odorless and colorless. We’d be none the wiser.”

“I haven’t noticed any lights or sounds.”

“I haven’t either, but the could be sub- or ultra-. Something we can’t detect, but can still influence our actions.”

“Well, since we can’t hold our breath, next time they try to make us kill each other, why don’t I fashion myself some earplugs and you close your eyes.”

Natasha simply raised her eyebrow in response.

Clint shrugged, “can’t hurt.”

Natasha laughed despite herself. Leaning back into the corner she closed her eyes. “Let me know how those ear plugs go.”

Clint considered his options before stripping off his tactical vest to get to the undershirt beneath. Using his teeth he tore two pieces of fabric from the hem, wadded them up and stuffed them deep into his ears.

He sat, quietly scanning the room, until he felt a sudden urge to stand at attention. It was like an incessant need that he found almost impossible to resist. Natasha’s eyes flew open at about the same time, and she in fact did stand at attention
Realizing what was happening, Clint quickly followed suit.

The door opened at the front of the room and two men in white coats stepped in. Clint kept his eyes trained forward as the men approached until they were close enough to engage. It took very little effort to incapacitate the two men, which he’d anticipated from their attire. What he hadn’t anticipated was the attack from Natasha.

They had sparred together many a time, but this was not sparring. This was all out and Clint knew that she’d kill him if she got the opportunity. Between fighting her and the constant urge to quit, to submit, he knew he wouldn’t last long. Seizing an opportunity, he used her momentum to fling her across the room. He then quickly snatched up both ID badges and bolted for the door. Scanning one of the badges at the door lock, he slipped out and slammed the door behind him.

The order to stop, to comply, became stronger outside the room and he stumbled under the weight of it. He knew he wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer. He needed to block out more of the signal.

Clint quickly scanned the hallway. It was currently vacant, but he knew that wasn’t going to last. He immediately started down the hallway to the left. When they’d first breached the facility, they’d been almost immediately taken over, and before they could even register what was truly going on, they’d been made to engage each other. They were made to brawl, to fight until they were bloodied and broken, but not to kill. At their breaking point, they’d been made to stop, stand at attention, and then march to the detainment room. Even though they were being controlled, they’d been conscious of everything. Consequently, Clint knew a minimal layout of the facility including where they’d been made to disarm.

As he continued to move quickly yet cautiously down the hallway, Clint could feel his resolve started to slip. The need to give in to the suggestion made him hesitate, twice he turned around and almost went back. Determined, he shoved the pieces of cloth deeper into his ears, which helped, but only minimally. They were either increasing the strength of their suggestion, or their theory about it being auditory was wrong. He had to hope it was the former; otherwise, he didn’t see a way out of this.

The third time he turned, their were two militants outside a now opened containment room. He watched as Natasha emerge from the from the room. She looked down the hall, locked eyes with him, and then charged.

“Shit,” Clint muttered. It was foolish to turn your back on the Black Widow, but he couldn’t afford to get into another skirmish. So he acted the fool and took off down the hall. He was close to the room where they’d abandoned their weaponry; he just hoped that nothing had been moved.

Clint slammed into the door in question as he turned the knob, but it was locked. He fumbled the keycard when he attempted to unlock it, which gave Natasha enough time to close the distance. Forced to engage, Clint struggled to remain on the defensive, but the urge to fight, the urge to retaliate was almost overwhelming. Somehow through the maylay, Clint managed to use the second keycard to unlock the door and muscle it open. He landed a kick to Natasha’s midsection, causing her to stagger back. Seizing the opportunity, he slipped into the room and closed the door.

Given that he’d left the fumbled keycard outside, Clint knew he didn’t have much time. He scanned the room quickly. His bow and Natasha’s pistols were laid out on one side of a table, her magazines and widow’s bit and his quiver on the other. He moved quickly, snatching up first his bow and then quiver just as Natasha opened the door. As she made her approach, Clint keyed his bow, and drew the trick arrow from the quiver. There wasn’t time to nock the arrow, let alone draw or fire, before she was on him again. Clint knew, with her guns within reach, he was dead if he didn’t act fast. He managed to shove her back, to put some semblance of space between them. Which bought him just enough to time activate the sonic tip.

The sound was deafening, but that of course, was the point. When Natasha looked at him again, there was clarity in her eyes. Words could not be spoken, but they didn’t need to be. They moved in unison, gearing up, and then stepping out into the hallway. Strike Team Delta cleared the compound in record time, retrieved the package they originally came for, plus a few extras.

Natasha would recover her hearing. Clint would not.